Arizona RepublicDowntown
District an Intriguing Idea; for all but a few sitting congressmen, that
isOpinion Editorial September 30, 2001

It was bad enough when Arizona's
proposed congressional districts offered only two seats which either a
Republican or a Democrat could win.

Now, a new analysis of voting patterns
shows the draft plan doesn't have two competitive districts after all. It
has one.

One out of eight.

If two of eight was disappointing, one
of eight is absolutely, completely and unequivocally unacceptable.

The Arizona Independent Redistricting
Commission must find a way to increase the number of competitive districts
so that voters have some actual choices.

One idea that offers great promise is a
proposal to create a downtown congressional district. The plan, offered by
the Coalition for a Downtown Competitive District, would create a seat
that included all of Tempe, southern Scottsdale and a diagonal swath,
southeast to northwest, through central Phoenix to the border of Glendale.

We like the looks of it, for three
principal reasons:

1. It unites a critically important
community of interest, the central city. Having a congressional
representative wholly focused on issues affecting downtown areas - issues
such as redevelopment, mass transit and crime among them - would give
voice to a group that has for too long been sliced, like a pie, into
inconsequential pieces.

2. It creates a competitive district.
Under the current plan, there is no such animal in all of Maricopa County.
Instead, there are four seats set aside for Republicans and one for
Democrats. This plan would create a district that is 41 percent Republican
and 36 percent Democrat.

3. It gives the minority community
influence in a third congressional district. Nearly a third of this
district's voting-age population would be minority citizens, giving them a
strong voice where they have had virtually none. This, without endangering
either of the two proposed "majority-minority" districts. That seems
appropriate, given that 36 percent of Arizonans are members of a racial or
ethnic minority group.

It should come as no surprise that not
everyone likes this proposed district.

We suspect that Democratic Rep. Ed
Pastor may not be so happy. This proposal would drop the percentage of
voting-age Hispanics in his neighboring district to 48 percent from 52
percent. However, the district still would maintain its solid
majority-minority status, with 60 percent of the voting-age population
belonging to a minority group.

If Pastor dislikes this district,
Republican Reps. John Shadegg, J.D. Hayworth and Jeff Flake are likely to
despise it.

All three would wind up in the same
district under this proposal. Hayworth lives in north Scottsdale, Shadegg
lives in north Phoenix and Flake lives in north Mesa.

That, however, cannot be a
consideration. The law properly bars the Independent Redistricting
Commission from considering the home addresses of incumbents.

Under this plan, the southeast Valley
would continue to have its own congressional district, as would rural
Arizona - two points for which residents in those areas have argued
strongly.

In fact, according to a new analysis,
the rural district would be Arizona's only competitive district if the
current draft maps are adopted.

The study, conducted by Michael P.
McDonald, an assistant professor of political studies at the University of
Illinois, found that although voter registration numbers may reflect two
competitive districts, an analysis of voting patterns during the 1990s
indicates there would be only one.

If true, that would leave Arizona with
five so solidly Republican districts and two so solidly Democrat districts
that for the next miserable decade there'd be virtually no reason to go
the polls in November - at least, not to cast a congressional vote.

We believe the Independent
Redistricting Commission wants to make these districts more competitive.
Last week, the panel directed its consultants to draw up a central city
district, in an attempt to increase competition. The challenge is doing
this without causing serious harm to the other legal principles guiding
this process, most notably protecting minority voting rights.

We believe it can be done. We believe
this proposal shows it can be done. We believe Arizona must have at least
three competitive districts.

Hispanic leaders are suggesting changes
to the proposed legislative boundaries that they insist would bolster
minority voting strength and more evenly distribute Republicans and
Democrats.

Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose
Wilcox, a Democrat who represents District 5, which covers south Phoenix
and the surrounding county, said the proposal by a coalition of Hispanic
leaders does not create more "majority-minority" districts than the state
redistricting commission was already considering.

Hispanic leaders were elated earlier
this year when the redistricting panel's consultants proposed new maps
that had 10 of 30 legislative districts dominated by minorities. The most
recent maps have nine, but that is still higher than the current system,
which has only seven "majority-minority" districts.

But some Hispanic leaders, including
state Sen. Peter Rios, D-Hayden, who represents part of south-central
Arizona, said giving minorities more strength shouldn't come at the
expense of competitive districts in the rest of the state.

The latest proposal "protects all
rights for all people," Wilcox said Wednesday at the final public hearing
in the county held by the Independent Redistricting Commission. Commission
members said they will take the proposal into consideration.

The proposal also seems to have support
from other minority groups, reducing the threat of legal challenges if the
proposal is adopted.

In the Valley, the coalition's maps
have minority-dominated districts in south and southwest Phoenix and in
Avondale and Tolleson. Other minority districts would be in the southwest
part of the state.

The redistricting commission has a
final public hearing scheduled for Saturday in Show Low and Bullhead City.
Both meetings begin at 3 p.m.

Redistricting happens every 10 years on
the basis of the latest population and demographic information from the
U.S. census. The 2000 census showed that the state had a 40 percent growth
rate during the 1990s and a 79 percent increase in its minority
population.

Yet across the East Valley, cities and
towns and even neighborhoods are closely watching a redistricting process
that will reshape how residents are represented in the state Capitol and
in Congress. So many people turned out at a public hearing in Mesa one
night that organizers ran out of public comment forms.

Tempe leaders are busy pleading to be
kept together. So are Ahwatukee Foothills leaders. And Chandler, now
carved into three different legislative districts, is a bit giddy at the
latest plan to only divide the city twice.

State Sen. Jay Blanchard, D-Gilbert,
knows many people still don't have any idea about the whole redistricting
process or care much about the results. But they should. *"This
fundamentally affects government and government's relationship with
voters," he said.

The state is required to change its
districts based on the 2000 census, so the Independent Redistricting
Commission went to work molding new congressional and legislative
boundaries.

Change was inevitable, with Maricopa
County's population jumping 45 percent in the past decade. The
redistricting commission's charge: create districts of equal population
without messing with what redistricting officials call "communities of
interest," or places with the same concerns and interests.

Public review

The boundaries are being reviewed by
the public, including those who will attend a meeting at 6:30 tonight at
Mesa Community College. Finalized maps will be reviewed by the U.S.
Department of Justice later this fall.

As East Valley cities review the
proposed maps, there's a common theme: Many feel they are being left
intact rather than having their cities further divided, and their power
diluted, into more districts. If the boundaries remain as they are, many
in the East Valley will be pleased - or at least relieved.

John McComish applauds the fact that
"Ahwatukee is whole."

"So far, we're glad we're in one
piece," said McComish, president of the Ahwatukee Foothills Chamber of
Commerce.

Redistricting is a difficult process,
he knows. Change one boundary line to please one city and you create a
problem for another. But the results are key: "Who's going to represent
you?" he asked. "Who's going to represent your interests?"

Tempe, too, has heavily lobbied the
commission. Former Tempe mayor and current legislator Harry Mitchell, a
Democrat; state Rep. Meg Burton Cahill, also a Democrat, and others from
Tempe asked the commission not to divide the city into numerous different
districts. In the latest plans, all but a small sliver of south Tempe is
in the same district.

"It's important for us to have one
voice," Tempe Mayor Neil Giuliano said. "Tempe has a lot of like-thinking
people . . . There is a view and there is an outlook on life and issues
and public policies that is a little different in Tempe."

Voters in Tempe supported tax hikes for
transit improvements and football stadiums when other more conservative
neighbors did not, he said.

There's a side effect of trying to keep
cities together, said Blanchard: "Splitting the cities up, gerrymandering,
runs counter to what cities are trying to do to build a sense of
community, a sense of belonging."

That approach by the commission to
carve up cities as little as possible is why the current plan is "good for
the East Valley as a whole," Chandler spokesman Dave Bigos said.

It's not a simple approach, though.
There will be roughly 640,000 people in each proposed congressional
district and about 171,000 in each legislative district.

'Drawn and quartered'

McComish said the commission is
guaranteed to upset some.

At a recent public meeting on
redistricting, nearly 100 attended. Some talked about cities being "drawn
and quartered" through redistricting. Others blasted the present District
7 as an example of political boundaries gone bad. The abstract district
stretches more than a Slinky, taking in little parts of numerous areas
including Chandler, Apache Junction, Mammoth, Kearny, Sacaton, San Manuel,
Dudleyville and others.

Arizona Republic Arizona
Democrats Gear Up for Prospect of Suit on Remapping By Chip
Scutari August 28, 2001

John P. Frank won the landmark Miranda
case in 1966, which requires police to read suspects their rights. He also
represented Anita Hill when she accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence
Thomas of sexual harassment.

Now both attorneys are helping the
state Democratic party prepare a potential lawsuit if new congressional
and legislative draft maps proposed by the state's Independent
Redistricting Commission don't change. Democrats have criticized the draft
maps for being too friendly to Republicans. They say the maps don't
embrace the concept of competition and keep the GOP's stranglehold over
state politics. Republicans say those complaints are off base.

Frank and Eckstein, who have longtime
ties to the Democratic Party, said it's too early to talk about suing. But
it's not too soon to have a Plan B just in case.

"Certainly we hope the Independent
Redistricting Commission considers all of the requirements of Proposition
106," said Eckstein, referring to the voter-approved initiative that
created the citizen redistricting panel. "It's premature to talk about
legal actions, but we are actively following what the maps look like."

So far, Eckstein, Frank and Rick
Halloran, who works with Frank at the Lewis and Roca law firm, have been
doing the legal work for free. The legal team is looking at two key
issues: political competitiveness and whether the commission is using the
Voting Rights Act to dilute the voice of minorities by packing them into
too few districts.

The hiring of the high-powered
attorneys drew immediate criticism from the Republican Party.

"At this point of the game, I think
it's inappropriate for the Democrats to be threatening lawsuits," said
Nathan Sproul, executive director of the Arizona Republican Party. "It
seems like political arm twisting."

The congressional and legislative maps
are being shown across the state during a second round of public hearings.
The commission wants to send the maps to the Department of Justice by
October.

State Sen. Pete Rios has lived
comfortably for 10 years in a heavily gerrymandered district he helped
carve out 10 years ago. But his fortunes may soon change.

A plan for new state legislative
boundaries lumps Rios, D-Dudleyville, and four other incumbent Democratic
lawmakers, including a fellow state senator, into a single legislative
district that stretches 240 miles northeast from Douglas in southern
Arizona past Fountain Hills to Yavapai County. Now Rios, who represents
District 7, and others worry that Democratic lawmakers will end up
defeating each other, rather than Republicans, in the 2002 elections.

"The current district I represent is
beautiful compared to this mess they created that goes from the Mexican
border all the way up and abuts the county line in Yavapai County," Rios
said. "This is the worst I've ever seen."

The overall redistricting plan would
make Democrats a "second-class party" in Arizona for the next 10 years,
Rios says. Other influential Democrats say the draft maps, which show
Republicans with an edge in 17 of 30 districts, will leave Arizonans with
a one-sided debate on key issues such as health care, education, energy
and the environment. Republicans disagree, saying that the new maps pack
GOP incumbents into districts in places like Paradise Valley and Sun City
West and that Democrats have no reason to complain.

"It's refreshing to see that politics
has been taken out of the redistricting process," said Nathan Sproul,
executive director of the Arizona Republican Party. "The Democrats should
be happy. The districts are symbolic of an evenly divided state and
country as far as political leanings go."

Public hearings begin today on the
proposals created by Arizona's Independent Redistricting Commission. The
goal of the panel, established when voters approved Proposition 106 last
year, has been to replace a highly political exercise in drawing new
legislative boundaries with one based on reason.

But so far the new system hasn't
stifled partisan bickering.

Democrats point to the odd-shaped
district that stuffs Democratic Sens. Rios and Marsha Arzberger and three
Democratic House members into a funky-looking political home. Rep. Bobby
Lugo, a Bisbee Democrat in the district, said the commission has created
"communities of disinterest."

"They are doing a disservice by making
a district like this," Lugo said. "This district dilutes the minority
representation. That's how I was elected."

But Rios' current "beautiful" district
is considered by many to be the poster child for gerrymandering. It
meanders from Pinal County to Maricopa County, scooping up pockets of
Hispanic voters while skipping over Republican sections of Casa Grande.

The draft map will probably change
after the round of public hearings. Steve Lynn, chairman of the
redistricting commission, said the map is "a work in progress."

"Any criticism at this point is
premature," said Lynn, the commission's only Independent. "We're not
hiding behind anything. Nobody is avoiding competition. We know these maps
aren't perfect. That's what the public comment is for."

Figures provided by the commission show
only four potential "swing districts," where the numbers of registered
Republicans and Democrats are separated by 5 percent or less.

Other districts are either heavily
Republican or heavily Democratic. Currently, Republicans have about a
100,000-person edge in voter registration in the state.

Jim Pederson, chairman of the state
Democratic Party, said there could be a lawsuit if the maps don't change.
He is pushing for eight competitive districts.

Meanwhile, the redistricting plan would
pack incumbents into numerous districts throughout the state:

ï A Tucson area district has seven
incumbent lawmakers who can run for re-election, including three
Republican House members.

Four Republican House members, Barbara
Leff, Steve Tully, Jeff Hatch-Miller and Steve May, are pushed into a new
northeast Phoenix district that includes the residence of former Gov. Fife
Symington, who has talked about running for the state Senate or House.

ï A Mesa district would have three
conservative Republicans, Reps. Russell Pearce, Dean Cooley and Karen
Johnson, battling for two spots in the House.

Chuck Coughlin, a lobbyist and
Republican strategist, said the griping about new boundaries shows that
politics can't be stripped away from redistricting.

"It really doesn't matter who is
drawing the lines, people are going to complain," Coughlin said.

Arizona Republic
District drafts out of balance: Fine line
favors minorities, but leaves few choices Editorial August 20, 2001

A decade ago, it was strictly
Capitol basement stuff. There, a few legislative powerbrokers toiled over
maps with the precision of a neurosurgeon, carving up political turf.

What came out of that basement wasn't always good for
Arizona, but it worked fairly well for Arizona's politicians.

Why else do you think the Sun Cities were dropped into
three legislative districts but to bolster the Republicans' power in the
northwest Valley?

Democrats weren't much better. When tiny Casa Grande
was split in half, it wasn't good for the town. But it worked really well
for a Hispanic Democratic leader who wanted the "rednecks" out of his
district.

Fortunately, those days of blatantly self-interested
incumbents selecting who they will represent are over. During these dog
days of summer, a citizen panel is sweating over a set of legislative and
congressional districts that will see Arizona through the decade.

It is a maddening process, painstaking, plodding,
tedious. But done right, this business of mapmaking must be messy because
it is so very public.

From all corners of the state, people have come,
offering advice on how to draw districts that unite people with common
interests. Unfortunately, it isn't quite so simple.

Central Phoenix's historic neighborhoods, for example,
want their own district but if they stay together, it could dilute the
voting strength of the city's minority populations. The Salt River and
Fort McDowell reservations logically belong with the Gila River community,
but accomplishing that may mean pushing Apache Junction out of the East
Valley and into a rural district. A coalition of eastern Arizona counties
want their own district but to do so could well mean the Prescott Valley
area gets fractured into three pieces. And what do you do with the Navajo
and Hopi, who by geography belong together and by disposition do not?

How the commission resolves these and other conflicts
will have an impact on Arizona politics for a decade.

After a month of public hearings and two weeks of work,
the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission last week adopted draft
congressional maps and wrangled with a legislative plan. Public hearings
start Saturday and once done the maps will be refined, approved and sent
off to the U.S. Justice Department, which will toss them in the trash if
they trample the rights of minority voters.

The draft maps represent a monumental amount of work.
Clearly, the commission is trying to draw districts based on the needs of
Arizonans rather than its politicians.

There are some disappointments, however. So much
emphasis on drawing districts based on race and ethnicity is leaving
precious little room for any partisan competition.

Currently, two of Arizona's six congressional districts
are competitive, meaning that neither party has more than a five-point
registration advantage over the other. Under the new draft plan, it's two
of eight.

In the Legislature, a whopping one district now boasts
voter registration numbers that allow for actual competition. An early
draft showed that number skyrocketing all the way to . . . three! Better
than one, certainly, but not nearly good enough.

It's a given, legally and morally, that the districts
must be fair to Arizona's minority populations. But surely there is a
reasonable compromise that would allow for both fairness and some bona
fide choices come November.

This is in part what Proposition 106 was selling, and
it is certainly what voters expect.

Hispanics alone would have 54 percent of the
voting-age population in one district. Also, Hispanics, American Indians,
Blacks, Asians and other minorities would have a fighting chance for House
seats in two other districts, each with about 36 percent minority
populations.

The House map would create five House districts
in the increasingly populous Phoenix area, put two others in southern
Arizona and create a purely rural district centered in the state's
northern reaches.

Under the 1990 redistricting, Phoenix has just
two districts. But the Phoenix area's population exploded during the past
decade and now has more than 3 million residents - about three-fifths of
the state's total population of 5.1 million. Still, it's roughly 125,000
residents short of the number needed to obtain all five districts.

Because Arizona's population grew by 40 percent
during the 1990s, including a 79 percent increase in the minority
population, the state's six-Member delegation is gaining two House seats
in reapportionment.

The maps released last Wednesday offered the
first glimpse of House maps the commission is reviewing. They were drafted
by the bipartisan commission's consultant, National Demographics Corp. The
commission is comprised of two Republicans, two Democrats and one
Independent.

Arizona's new, non-political Independent Redistricting Commission,
created by a statewide vote last year, is expected to approve a new House
map this fall.

Arizona's proposed new congressional map
grants minority and rural voters newfound political strength while
dividing the intertwined but feuding Hopi and Navajo tribes.

The
Independent Redistricting Commission, which released a draft congressional
map late Saturday, was expected to grant one of Arizona's two new
congressional seats, earned by population gains in the 2000 census, to an
expansive rural district covering most of northern and eastern Arizona.

The other
would go to a southwestern Arizona district where Hispanics and Native
Americans make up the majority. The state's six sitting congressmen each
landed in a separate district, despite the commission's mandate to ignore
incumbent addresses in drawing the maps.

"If we
agreed with anything else the commission was doing, that would be good
news," said Nathan Sproul, executive director for the state Republican
Party. "The way the commission has drawn the map, they clearly gave the
advantage to Democrats for the two new seats."

House
Minority Leader Ken Cheuvront said the rural district is far from a lock
for Democrats.

"We don't
think the rural district is competitive," Cheuvront, D-Phoenix, said.
"When you analyze it for voter turnout, you'll see that Prescott and
Payson will control that district." Those are heavily Republican areas.

The
commission is expected to adopt the draft congressional map once it
finishes the companion legislative maps, either today or later this week.

"This map
is not perfect, and we know that," commission Chairman Steve Lynn said
Saturday. "It's not our intent to put out a finished map, we still want
public input."

The plan
also would give the East Valley its own congressional district and carve
out another one for most older Phoenix and Glendale neighborhoods. In all,
Maricopa County would dominate five of the eight districts because that is
where 62 percent of the state's population is concentrated. Tucson and
Pima County would control the two southern Arizona districts.

Under the
plan, the number of minority-majority congressional districts would double
to two.

"For the
most part, we're pleased, but we're concerned about the inclusion of the
Biltmore area in the central-south Phoenix congressional district," said
Rudolfo Perez Jr., attorney for the Mexican-American Legal Defense and
Education Fund.

In the
Legislature, minorities would have the majority in 10 of 30 proposed
districts, up from seven. Latino leaders have criticized the early drafts
of the legislative map, however, because when the population is broken
down by voting age, minorities lose their advantage in three of the 10
districts.

The job of
drawing legislative districts is proving much more thorny. Debate about
whether to divide cities such as Tempe and Casa Grande mixed with pressure
from Latino leaders not to dilute minority voting strength had temporarily
stumped the commission's consultants, the National Demographics Corp. If
the commission does not produce a legislative map by 3 p.m. today, it will
reconvene Thursday in Tucson and try again.

The
commission was created under voter-approved Proposition 106 to take
redistricting out of the hands of the Legislature. The commission is
pushing itself to finish because Proposition 106 mandates a 30-day public
comment period on the draft maps, with possible tweaks to follow. Any more
delays would hurt hopes of delivering maps to the Justice Department by
October.

The most
noticeable irregularity on Arizona's new congressional district map, the
eastern balloon of District A, which takes in the Hopi Reservation, is the
legacy of a 140-year-old feud between the Hopis and the Navajos. The
legislative map also will likely keep the tribes separate.

"It's an
old, old issue," said John Crow, professor emeritus of political science
at the University of Arizona. "It wouldn't make sense to keep them
together. There's very little that they have in common."

About
7,000 Hopis live on a series of Mesas surrounded by more than 100,000
Navajos. Frank Seanez, an attorney for the Navajo Nation, argued that
Hopis and Navajos should have more commonalties than differences in the
eyes of the Justice Department, which must give final approval to the
maps. Both are minority and Indian, and the Hopis' loss dilutes minority
voting strength in the area.

"It's a
pretty small tail wagging a very big dog," Seanez said.

But it's
also an arrangement the Justice Department has approved before, four out
of five commissioners noted.

The two
tribes have been at odds since the 1860s, when Navajos returning from a
forced exile in New Mexico began to settle on lands claimed by the Hopis.
The dispute has played out this century in a series of lawsuits, a complex
and expensive federal resettlement of Navajos, and the splitting up of
congressional representation in 1992.

"Simply
and frankly put, the interests of all Indian people are not always common
interests," Hopi Chairman Wayne Taylor wrote to the commission last month.
"The Hopi voice would simply be swallowed up and drowned out within the
context of the much larger Navajo voice."

Although
the bulk of the Hopis and Navajos tend to swing heavily Democratic at the
ballot box, the leadership of both tribes also has enjoyed the friendship
of Republicans. The late U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater always remained on good
terms with the Hopis but broke with the Navajos in the mid-1970s over the
land dispute.

Today,
both reservations are represented by the GOP, the Hopis by Rep. Bob Stump
and the Navajos by Rep. J.D. Hayworth.

The independent panel of citizens
charged with drawing new political boundaries is expected to wrap up its
work today, but so far there haven't been many jaw-droppers in the
proposed congressional maps.

Not a single congressional incumbent,
for example, will have to duke it out with another incumbent to retain his
congressional seat.

And don't expect particularly vigorous
competition at polling places because the majority of districts should be
easy wins for politicians in the district's majority party. Because of
that, political observers say there could be heartburn among voters who
approved changes to the way lines were drawn last year.

"I think at a minimum, the voters
expected that this process would do what it was sold to do and it was sold
principally on producing competitive districts," said Bob Grossfeld, a
Phoenix-based pollster.

What has trumped any discussion of
political competition, so far, is a large umbrella the redistricting
commission calls "communities of interest." Hispanic and other minority
voters, for example, make up a community and are generally kept together.
Agricultural or mining interests are kept together, as are rural
interests.

Some say there is justification for
that. When the retirement community of Green Valley initially was put in
with a bloc of South Side and Nogales voters, retirees complained they
didn't share commonality with the border region. Green Valley later was
put into a primarily Cochise County district, only to have commissioners
ask it be moved once more, this time into East Tucson because of economic
and political similarities.

That long process of assigning
communities was expected to mitigate many of the obvious red flags in the
Tucson maps. Marana and Oro Valley are now no longer expected to be in the
same district with Mesa. Consultants also are considering moving Ajo,
which was initially put in with Yuma voters, back to Tucson.

But the minute geography becomes a
focus, out goes competition. It's a safe bet that South Tucson voters will
have a Democrat representing them at the Legislature. In conservative East
Mesa, it will be a Republican.

But Grossfeld says he thinks voters
would be happier in a district with meshed interests than in what he sees
taking shape. "Voters want to know that they can use their individual vote
in a meaningful way - not that they needn't bother voting because races
are being decided in the primary and it's a foregone conclusion."

If it's any consolation to Grossfeld,
neither party claims to be pleased with what it sees. Republicans say they
are counting five of the eight congressional districts as theirs, with
three going to Democrats. GOP officials note that since they've already
got five Republican incumbents, Democrats are the beneficiaries of the
state's two brand-new congressional seats.

Democrats say they think Republicans
really got six, because the one Democratic-leaning swing district contains
large numbers of American Indian voters who have low voter turnout. And by
their math, with 38 percent of the state Democratic compared with 42
percent Republican, a 6-2 split isn't quite fair.

In the Tucson area, a southwest border
congressional district taking in the West and South Sides of Tucson would
have a majority of ethnic voters and a majority of Democrats. What is
currently Congressman Jim Kolbe's district would remain a swing district,
with a slight GOP edge.

Democratic Congressman Ed Pastor has
expressed support for his district, since it's a South Phoenix,
heavily-Hispanic district, as he requested. Republican Congressman Jeff
Flake would keep his Mesa-Gilbert area district with its heavy GOP
registration. GOP Congressman J.D. Hayworth ended up with a
Scottsdale-Tempe district with a heavy Republican edge. Congressman John
Shadegg loses his Scottsdale base, but would be in a central Phoenix
district with a 13 percent GOP advantage. Congressman Bob Stump, a
Republican, could retain his West Phoenix base.

But not all observers say voters will
be unhappy with the results. "No matter what plans are adopted, someone
will say it will disadvantage one party or other, because the parties want
to improve their positions," said John Garcia, head of the University of
Arizona's political science department. "My suspicion is that voters
didn't perceive this as removing partisanship from the process because it
is such a partisan process anyway."

Commissioners are expected to discuss
what, if anything, can be done to the draft maps to increase political
competition as they continue to meet through today and possibly into
Sunday, to approve the draft maps. Those maps will be taken around the
state later this month for public comment before being finalized.

Arizona's minorities would command more political power than ever
under a proposed mapping of congressional and legislative districts.

Political boundaries
recommended Wednesday represent not only a reshaping of election district
geography, but the dawn of a new system for defining the coming decade of
state politics.

The plan would give the
East Valley its own congressional district, carve out another one for most
older Phoenix and Glendale neighborhoods, and keep Navajos and Hopis in
separate districts.

Under the plan, minorities
would have majority voices in two of the eight congressional districts and
10 of the 30 districts that elect state legislators.

That's a jump from the
current count of one "minority-majority" congressional district among six
statewide, and seven such legislative districts.

The two proposed minority
congressional districts, spanning southwestern Arizona and the Valley's
southwest, would have 62 percent and 72 percent minority
populations, respectively.

Hispanics alone would have
54 percent of the voting-age population in the latter district. Also,
minorities - Hispanics, Native Americans, Blacks, Asians and others -
would have a fighting chance for congressional seats in two other
districts, each with about 36 percent minority populations.

The state's new
non-political Independent Redistricting Commission, created by a statewide
vote, will review the maps over the next several days before approving the
versions to be discussed in statewide public hearings over the next six
weeks.

The commission is made up
of two Republicans, two Democrats and one Independent.

The maps released Wednesday
were the first look at possible boundaries. They were the work of the
commission's consultant, National Demographics Corp.

Because of Arizona's
40 percent growth rate during the 1990s, paced by a 79 percent
increase in the minority population, the state will have eight
congressional districts, two more than it has now.

The redistricting plan
would divide most of the northern part of the state into two districts,
give the Valley major influence in five districts, and bisect Tucson to
create two districts in southern Arizona.

Redistricting is performed
every 10 years on the basis of the latest population and demographic
information from the decennial U.S. census.

In past decades, the
mapping has been done by the party in power in the Legislature, evoking
cries of unfairness and gerrymandering from interests shut out of the
process.

On Wednesday, Democrats
immediately cried foul despite the creation of the commission to keep
politics out of mapping. They aimed most of their criticism at the
legislative boundaries, although they also expressed dissatisfaction with
the congressional proposal, too.

State House Minority Leader
Ken Cheuvront, D-Phoenix, complained that the legislative plan split
counties, cities and areas that could have produced close races. He said
Democrats probably will sue if the proposed boundaries are adopted.

Republicans, meanwhile,
said they wouldn't comment on the proposals until they had a chance to
analyze them.

"It's just too early," said
Nathan Sproul, executive director of the state Republican Party. He noted
that tables released Wednesday did not contain numbers showing the
relative strength of the parties in the various districts.

Paul Hegarty, political
director for the state Democratic Party, said it appeared that the mapping
consultants, who worked on instructions from the Redistricting Commission,
did not follow the guidelines of Proposition 106, which was approved
overwhelmingly in November.

The commission is charged
with creating geographically compact districts that respect such
"communities of interest" as ethnicity, city limits, county boundaries and
school districts while also trying to ensure political competition.

"I'm not sure what
boundaries they followed," Hegarty said. "It looks like the commission has
a long way to go to make these actually into maps that fulfill the
proposition."

Hegarty noted that most of
the eight proposed congressional districts are either influenced or
dominated by Maricopa County, which could erode rural voting strength.

Cheuvront was more blunt.

"It looks more
gerrymandered than what the status quo is," he said. "On the legislative
map, they split up Tempe, which would have been a competitive area, and
they put central Phoenix in with Paradise Valley."

Hispanics and other
minorities may gain 10 "safe" legislative districts for the Democratic
Party, but they could come at the expense of competitive districts among
the remaining 20, Cheuvront said..

A coalition of Latino
Democratic leaders submitted a map to the redistricting commission earlier
this summer that included 10 "majority-minority" districts, while the
state Democratic Party opted for nine in their proposal. Republicans did
not submit a map.

Some Hispanic leaders would
trade safe seats for overall increased strength for the Democratic Party.

Sen. Pete Rios, D-Hayden,
said before the maps were released that competitive districts are key.

"If we have nine Latinos in
the state Senate, that's good. But we will never be able to advance our
agenda," Rios said. "The magic number in the Senate is 16 and (it's) 31 in
the House."

The commission will debate
and possibly adopt the draft map in a series of public meetings that begin
at noon today at the Pointe South Mountain Resort, 7777 S. Pointe Parkway
in Phoenix, and possibly continuing through Saturday.

The five-member panel
approved a grid of equal-population districts that will be used to divide
the state into 30 legislative and eight congressional districts for the
2002 elections.

Already, the districts are
beginning to look more compact than the bizarre shapes drawn by majority
House Republicans and Senate Democrats a decade ago to ensure re-election.

The new redistricting
process was launched in November when voters approved Proposition 106, to
take redistricting from the partisan Legislature and give it to an
appointed group with no public office to protect.

"This is a starting point -
not where redistricting will end up, but where we will begin," commission
Chairman Steve Lynn said as the computerized grids were projected on a
wall at the Doubletree La Posada resort in Paradise Valley.

Amid a summerlong series of
statewide public hearings, the grids will be poked in here and pushed out
there, adjusted to protect voting rights of minorities and recognize
"communities of interest."

After a second series of
hearings on draft maps, the final set of districts will be submitted for
approval by the U.S. Justice Department by September.

None of the commissioners
would speculate on any outcome.

The grids and other
information will be available Monday in "citizen kits" for anyone who
wants to participate. Contact the commission at (602) 364-1350 or
1-866-864-7569.

A California firm with Valley
experience was named Thursday to crunch data and draw lines for new
legislative and congressional districts in Arizona.

National Demographics Inc.
prevailed over nine other applicants after promising to involve local
communities and individuals early in the process. The firm has drawn
election districts for Phoenix, Mesa, Glendale, Peoria and Surprise.

The Independent
Redistricting Commission also said the Maricopa County Elections
Department, former legislative consultant Tony Sissons and Election Data
Services of Washington, D.C., will share consulting duties.

Voters provided $6 million
for redistricting in November when they passed Proposition 106.

National Demographics Vice
President Alan Heslop said he would set up meetings with communities that
might be affected by new borders for 30 legislative districts and eight
congressional districts.

The new lines are needed
because the latest census increased Arizona's population to more than 5
million and added two congressional seats.

While dividing the state
into districts of equal population for the 2002 elections, the commission
must consider the voting power of racial and ethnic groups and communities
of interest such as elderly residents, agricultural areas and school
districts.

Arizona's redistricting
panel attempted to still critics and improve balance by adding two
Hispanic staff members on Tuesday. Minorities had objected that the
process by which the five-member Independent Redistricting Commission was
formed left them without representation. Now Jose de Jesus Rivera, the
current U.S. attorney for Arizona but who will be leaving that post, will
serve as a lawyer for the commission, and Enrique Medina Ochoa was named
executive director. Neither has a vote, and that's still a matter of
concern, said Steve Gallardo, a member of the Coalition for Latino
Political Action. Nonetheless, he said, he was pleased by the
appointments. Rivera's co-counsel is Lisa Hauser, a Republican who long
has played a role in state government and election litigation. Ochoa is a
translator who worked with the Census Bureau, reaching out to minority
communities. Rivera, a former city attorney in the western Phoenix suburb
of El Mirage, called the 1992 redistricting on behalf of Hispanics but
said he can work with all sides.

Roll Call Between the Lines (excerpt)
By John MercurioFebruary 19,
2001

Hispanics Wanted.

Hispanic
politicians in Arizona last week demanded that the state's new
redistricting commission resign, saying the all-white panel cannot
adequately represent a state where Hispanics comprise 30 percent of its
5.2 million people.

"A sign should be posted on its door that
reads, 'Whites only,'" said Mary Rose Wilcox, a Maricopa County
supervisor. "We are asking that the Arizona state government start this
process over." Led by Wilcox, Hispanic leaders have asked the Justice
Department to rescind approval for the commission under the federal Voting
Rights Act of 1965. Arizona voters created the commission last year by
passing Proposition 106, which took the power to redraw House boundary
lines away from the state's GOP-controlled Legislature. Republicans and
Democrats in the Legislature named the first four commissioners last
month. The four members then chose the chairman, Steve Lynn, an
independent.

Arizona gained two House seats in reapportionment.
None of the commission members appears prepared to resign. "I'm not sure
it's the way to achieve what they want," Andi Minkoff, a Democratic
commission member from Phoenix, told the Arizona Republic newspaper. Lynn
said he's "very sympathetic" to individuals who for many years have felt
they were not represented in public office as well as they might have
been. "But I would hope the commission as currently constituted would take
all of these issues into account."

Associated
Press

January 5, 2001 Finalists
named for redistricting committee

The
Commission on Appellate Court Appointments has whittled down the
applicants, leaving 25 people to vie for four openings on a panel that
will shape the political landscape of the state. The finalists are among
the 311 state residents who applied to serve on the Independent
Redistricting Commission, a group that will take over the task of drawing
district borders from the Legislature. Of the 25, 10 are Democrats, 10
Republican and five have no party affiliation.

Created by the passage of Proposition 106 in
November, the commission's importance has heightened since new Census
figures were released and the state was granted an additional two
districts because of its population boost. State legislative leaders will
choose four members from the group of finalists - most likely two from
each major party - later this month. Those four members will then choose a
final member, most likely an independent, who will serve as chairperson of
the group.

Long a bastion of conservative Republican politics, Arizona is prepared
for a dramatic reshaping of its political landscape. Arizona is among four
states that will gain two seats in Congress because of population
increases over the past decade. As a result, the state will send eight
people to the House of Representatives in the 2002 election. Overall, the
U.S. population rose to 281,421,906, up 13.2% from 1990, according to the
census figures released Thursday. The first numbers from the 2000 national
count provided a few surprises--North Carolina picked up a House seat
although Indiana and Michigan unexpectedly lost representatives. And
Florida and Georgia fared better than some experts had predicted, each
gaining two seats.

But the figures also confirmed a decade-long
trend of a population shift from the North and Midwest to the South and
West. For a winner like Arizona, the increase may seem like a victory for
the Republican Party, which holds five of the state's six current
congressional seats and controls the state Legislature. But for the first
time, state lawmakers will not control the process of redrawing Arizona's
congressional map. The boundaries will be set by an independent
commission. Many Democrats argue that independent redistricting will
improve the party's chances at winning House seats throughout the state.
"People think you get two new seats, you don't. You get eight new seats,"
state Democratic Party Chairman Mark Fleisher said. "It's going to be a
whole new ball game. They couldn't slice up the pie with eight and give us
only one."

According to the census, Arizona has added 1.5 million
people since 1990, giving it a population of 5,130,632. That's a 40%
increase, the second-fastest growth rate in the country, behind Nevada.
Democrats see the post-census redistricting as an opportunity for
Arizona's congressional delegation to better reflect the state's
population, which they say has become more diverse and less conservative.
Many of Arizona's new residents, including a booming immigrant population,
are moderate or liberal, observers say. Consider that President-elect Bush
won the state with only a narrow margin over Democrat Al Gore, despite the
support of Republican Gov. Jane Dee Hull and Sen. John McCain. And four
years ago, Bill Clinton became the first Democrat to carry Arizona in a
presidential election since Harry Truman.

Still, the majority of
Arizona's elected officials are Republicans. Things could change in 2002,
when the new seats are added. In November, voters approved creating an
Independent Redistricting Commission to draw Arizona's new political
boundaries. That job used to be done by the Legislature, which often
sought to protect Republican incumbents and cluster Democrats into just a
few districts. If the five-member commission creates more so-called swing
districts that are closely split between Republicans and Democrats,
minorities and moderates are expected to get more attention from
candidates.

"I think you're going to see a shift to people who can
draw from both sides," said Daniel Lewis, a Navajo Indian who is a senior
vice president at Bank of America. Political Effect of Population Shifts
Are Hard to Predict As for the ultimate impact of the redistricting, Bruce
Merrill, an Arizona State University pollster, echoes the view of many
political observers. "I don't think anybody really knows what's going to
happen," Merrill said.

Besides Arizona, other states
are gaining congressional seats: California gains one to have 53 seats;
Colorado gains one to have seven seats; and Florida gains two to have 25
seats. Other winners: Georgia gains two to have 13 seats; Nevada gains one
to have three seats; North Carolina gains one to have 13 seats; and Texas
gains two to have 32 seats. Connecticut loses one to leave five seats;
Illinois loses one to leave 19 seats; Indiana loses one to leave nine
seats; Michigan loses one to leave 15 seats; and Mississippi loses one to
leave four seats. Other losing states: New York loses two to leave 29
seats; Ohio loses one to leave 18 seats; Oklahoma loses one to leave five
seats; Pennsylvania loses two to leave 19 seats; and Wisconsin loses one
to leave eight seats.